Sometime ago, I read a book entitled A Time to Kill, written by John Grisham. It was about a little girl
of color, living in the south at a time when racism was at its peak. The little
girl was around 7/8 years old and while walking home from the store was struck
in the head with an unopened beer, thrown at her by two white men who had
passed her in a truck. They beat her, raped her, urinated and defecated on her,
then dropped her from a 10 foot bridge.
The dad of this little girl knew that justice for his
daughter was not an option, given the era and geographical location in which he
lived. So he took matters into his own hands and killed the two men. Now the
trial is centered on a man of color, who killed two white men in cold blood;
none of the people-except those of color-was interested in ‘why’ they were
killed, only that they were killed by a man of color.
While reading this novel, I had feelings of hurt, anger,
sadness, sorrow and relief. I kept thinking how could this community of people
be so cruel and heartless? I wanted justice so much for this family that I
thought about writing a sequel to the book myself. Needless to say, due to the
cunningness of the defense attorney, I was spared that task.
The family’s attorney cleverly got the jurors to imagine
every horrid detail of the abuse, rape, and attempted murder of the child and
won the case with these three words-imagine her white! In this incident, had
the attorney not challenged the juror to see the child white, the father would
have received the death penalty. Sometimes, all it takes to avoid prejudices/oppression,
or unintentional micro aggressions, is to put yourself in their shoes.
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